Saturday, October 3, 2015

Think, Thank, Thunk : History of the English Language


Think, Thank, Thunk: Origins of the English Language

by Terry Knudsen, Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute

Tri-TESOL Saturday, Oct. 3, 2015 1:30 pm Room 14-106

 

________________0_______________

B.C.                                                        A.D.

Before Christ                       Anno Domini
                      (Year of the Lord) 
                                                                                       

The history of Britain involves a series of invasions:

600 to 400 B.C. 
Celts invaded Britain,
pushing previous dwellers west and north.

 

55 B.C. 
Julius Caesar invades Britain with Roman troops.
 

Latin becomes the official language of Britain, used for law, courts, business, administration, and government.

Latin is based on Greek, an intricate system that takes time to learn and use. This developed in a warm climate, with plenty of food and shelter, with slaves, and time to play building blocks with words:        

struct (to build)

Prefixes  Word Roots  Suffixes

instruct   instruction, instructive, instructing, instructed

destruct  destruction, destructive, destructing, destructed

construct  construction, constructive, constructing, constructed

deconstruct deconstruction, deconstructive, deconstructing,-ed

Grammar Notes:
-ing was termed the present participle
 -ed was termed the past participle

These participles can be used as verbs, nouns, or adjectives:
The kids are talking
(present participle as Main Verb          
Talking is fun.  
(present participle used as noun, aka gerund, used as Subject of the sentence.      
The talking doll is cute.
(present participle used as an adjective to describe "doll."

 
Old English: Mid 5th century to the mid 11th century.

449 AD       
Invasion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes
 
The languages of these northern tribes developed in harsh, cold lands, where survival depended on fast responses.

The vocabulary existed in mostly one-syllable, short words:
farming life               sailing                fighting       clothing

cup, fork, spoon         rope                    knife            shirt

cow                            boat                    cut                skirt

 

The following verbs were considered “regular” and also were called “strong verbs.”

              Simple Form       Simple Past         Past Participle

Angles gave us the word “Anglish” now “English.”    

 

Saxons probably contributed these conjugations:     
think            thought               thought

bring            brought               brought

 
Jutes probably contributed these conjugations:         
drink            drank                  drunk

sink              sank                    sunk

ring              rang                    rung

sing              sang                    sung

 
Filtered : Examples of conjugation applications:    
bring            brang                  brang, brung
bringed        branged               brunged

 

Literature Topics: Camelot in Southwest England              

King Arthur, Guenivere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table
This includes the idea of courtly love, and equality.

 

Middle English: Late 11th century to late 15th century.

1066 AD      
The Norman Conquest
 

William the Conqueror and the Battle of Hastings

French became the new language of the British royal court.

 

1200s : Britain and half of France          
King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine
Developed a system of law, and Courtly Love
  Two of their children became famous/notorious:
King Richard the Lionheart on the Crusades
King John, with the Legend of Robin Hood, and the Magna Carta

 

1300s          
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
 

Chaucer wrote in the King’s court. He had to decide whether to write in Latin, the scholar’s language; in French, the language popular with the royals; or English, the language of the common people, the serfs, and merchants. Chaucer decided to write in English, and this began the formal acceptance of English for life and literature.

 

1400s  
The Printing Press in Europe
 Johannes Gutenberg’s moveable type printing press offered a method for mass production of affordable books, and raised the literacy rate.

 

Early Modern English: Late 15th century to the late 17th century

Modern English: Late 17th century to the present

1755            
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language
 
A popular and imitated book, Johnson’s dictionary contributed to standardized usage and the idea of “correct” spelling.

 

References for Students and Teachers:

“History of the English Language.” Wikipedia.


“Honey, I sunk the boat.”


“John Doe.” Sleepy Hollow. Television Series. Season One. 2013.

Tolkien. J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit.

        What say you?  (missing the helping, or auxillary verb “do.”)

Shafer, Robert. From Beowulf to Thomas Hardy. New York: The Odyssey Press, 1939. Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1924, 1931.

 

“Anglo-Saxon Words

After, be, bed, bid, board, body, borrow, box, break, bring, broad, business, buy, cat, cheap, clean, climb, clinch, cloth, dear, do, dog, draft, draw, earn, earth, father, fetch, fight, fireside, free, friend, full, get, give, gold, good, great, have, high, hire, hold, home, house, husband, idle, if, keep, knife, knit, lade, land, last, late, laugh, law, lay, lend, load, loan, long, look, low, mad, make, man, match, mate, might, mother, new, old, pride, put, read, rent, right, roof, sell, send, settle, sharp, shelter, ship, shop, short, silver, take, trade, waist, walk, water, way, weight, wide, wife, woman, word, work, write.


 

Why is it Sink, Sank, Sunk, but not Think, Thank, Thunk?

"...Strong verbs are actually some of the oldest words in any language, following ancient grammatical rules that had the stem of the word (rather than just the ending) change on the context.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070921114550AAgaDCk

 
Samples of Topic Lite research projects, for students to print or draw on 8 ½ by 11 construction paper, include about 5 sentences on the topic, and then place on a classroom timeline, either in the classroom, out in the hall, or online.

Sleepy Hollow Season One “John Doe” contains a few segments with Ichabod Crane speaking Middle English with ghosts from the vanished Roanoke Colony. (Actually, they would have been speaking Early Modern English).

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Proposals, and Presentations: Links to Conferences

Proposals, and Presentations: Links to Conferences
Links are updated asap. Please check other sources for a more complete listing.

WAESOL Conference 2016 Engaging Multilingual Learners
Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute
Spokane, WA
October 22, 2016
August 15, 2016 10:00 PM Pacific Time Deadline Call for Proposals


TESOL 2017
Call for Proposals Deadline June 1, 2016
Seattle, WA


Tri-TESOL 
October 2-3, 2015, Highline Community College Des Moines, WA
June 15, 2015 Deadline Call for Proposals

Spokane Regional ESL Conference 2015

Program PDF

WAESOL Conference 2014
Program PDF
October 24-25, 2014, Highline Community College, Des Moines, WA

Spokane Regional ESL Conference 2014
February 22, 2014
Call for Proposals Deadline Dec. 20, 2013

TESOL 2014
March 26 to 29, 2014
Portland, Oregon
Early Registration Deadline Feb. 03, 2014
Housing Deadline is February 21, 2014 or asap

WAESOL 2013
October 19, 2013
Highline Community College

TESOL 2013
March 20 to 23, 2013
Dallas Texas
Early Registration before February 01, 2013
Housing Deadline is February 15, 2013.

Spokane Regional ESL ConferenceSaturday, February 23, 2013
8:00 am to 4:00 pm
Early registration ends:
January 23, 2013
Conference site:
Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute
Spokane, WA

TESL Canada 2012 Conference
October 11, 12, 13, 2012
Kamloops, British Columbia


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Im Mörderlager Dachau: Vier Wochen unter den braunen Banditen by Hans Beimler 1933 Account of His Escape from Dachau

http://spartacus-educational.com/SPbeimer.htm

Another journalist, Claude Cockburn, added: "It is sadder still for the Nazis, for international Fascism, for the enemies of the people everywhere, that they should have been up against a man like Hans Beimler, who, when they thought they had him for sure, with five hours to decide between forced suicide and murder, yet had the willpower, the training, the discipline, the knowledge, to break out and to insist that he should live to fight new battles against them."
 

Im Mörderlager Dachau: Vier Wochen unter den braunen Banditen is an account of one of the first persons to escape from the Dachau concentration camp in WWII.

Check out Timothy W. Ryback's book Hitler's First Victims for an account of Hans Beimler's escape and subsequent publishing of his short time in the camp from April to May 1933.

His book, as far as I can tell, is only in German?

 

Hitler's First Victims: The Quest for Justice By Timothy W. Ryback

https://books.google.com/books?id=vgVxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT246&lpg=PT246&dq=Im+M%C3%B6rderlager+Dachau:+Vier+Wochen+unter+den+braunen+Banditen&source=bl&ots=474AJ6AF6e&sig=C5sahUu2D63_fLQGFK44DfFuRcc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DAAKVZ6YOInwoASi04KABA&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Im%20M%C3%B6rderlager%20Dachau%3A%20Vier%20Wochen%20unter%20den%20braunen%20Banditen&f=false



File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-82593-0001, "Porträt Hans Beimler" von Jürgen Peters.jpg
via Wikimedia Commons:
 For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. "Porträt Hans Beimler" von Jürgen Peters Zentralbild Eckleben 27.4.61 Sd-Kr Ausstellung von Werken der Bildenden Kunst für die Arbeiterfestspiele in Berlin. Eine Ausstellung von Werken Berliner Berufs- und Laienkünstler, die von Berliner Betrieben für den diesjährigen Kunstpreis des FDGB vorgeschlagen wurden und für die grosse Kunstausstellung bei den diesjähriges Arbeiterfestspielen vorgesehen sind, wurde am 23.4.61 in den Räumen des Märkischen Museums eröffnet. Die Ausstellung, die Werke von 25 Berufskünstlern und Arbeiten von ungefähr 100 Laienschaffenden zeigt, soll nicht nur einen Überblick über das Schaffen der Berliner Künstler vermitteln, sondern den Mitgliedern von künstlerisch tätigen Zirkeln in den Betrieben Anregung für ihre eigenen Arbeit geben. UBz: "Porträt Hans Beimler", ein Holzschnitt von Laienkünstler Jürgen Peters.

http://spartacus-educational.com/SPbeimer.htm
Claude Cockburn, The Daily Worker (5th December, 1936)
"For instance, he was arrested by the Nazis in Munich in 1934, and after being savagely beaten at the Brown House, was taken up to the Dachau concentration camp. What happened to him there he has told in his remarkable book, In the Hands of Hitler's Hell Hounds."